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Using a smartphone to control my TV (Panasonic Viera)

OliverOliver Registered User regular
in Help / Advice Forum
So my wife and I got a Panasonic VIERA TC-L47E50 the week after Thanksgiving and finally have everything set up the way we want it (for the most part). We have a basic HD cable package through WOW and have their dvr connected to the TV via an HDMI cable.

Panasonic has an android app that allows you to control the TV from your smartphone, its decent and some features are pretty cool actually, although the overall UI design is pretty terrible. That being said, I think I would use it a lot except for one thing: I change cable channels through the dvr, not the tv, so the channel change feature on the remote app does nothing. My guess is that there is no way around this, but I wanted to see if anyone had a solution...

Posts

  • a5ehrena5ehren AtlantaRegistered User regular
    Nothing you can do. The TV stuff works because it can be controlled over the network, but every cable DVR I've seen is IR only. You'd have to use a normal universal remote.

  • OliverOliver Registered User regular
    Yeah, thats kinda what I thought, thanks!

  • DaenrisDaenris Registered User regular
    not sure about other cable providers but Comcast has an android app to control some cable boxes from your smartphone so check your cable provider's site.

  • useless4useless4 Registered User regular
    Yea check your cable provider... Verizon FIOS also has an app to control your dvr/cable box through a smart phone.

  • BowenBowen Sup? Registered User regular
    https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blinq-tv/id351451688?mt=8

    http://www.blinqtv.com/

    I've heard good things about this.

  • OliverOliver Registered User regular
    Re: cable provider, sadly mine does not offer that type of service, at least not for their basic dvr. I could probably upgrade and get that functionality with their ultra tv package.

    Bowen, yeah I've started to look into some similar products. I probably wouldn't want something that plugged into my phone, but I know a few companies make IR blasters that connect to your phone or tablet or whatever via bluetooth.

    For the moment though I think I'm stuck using a universal remote.

  • BowenBowen Sup? Registered User regular
    Yeah look for the bluetooth to IR if you can find them. That'd be vastly superior to having to jam something into the stereo socket.

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